


Reminiscent

by JustARandomIdiot



Category: Infinity Train (Cartoon)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Slice of Life, also lake is nb and uses they/them bc im nb and use they/them and relate too hard, but i needed it, i really wanted all of them to meet, theres no romance here theyre all just friends, theyre probably all ooc tho i dont have a good feel for the characters yet, this was made like on the fly i had no idea where i was going with this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-12
Updated: 2020-01-12
Packaged: 2021-02-27 03:54:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22230646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustARandomIdiot/pseuds/JustARandomIdiot
Summary: It's been about two years since Tulip had stepped onto the train. Two years later, she's wondering how her friends are doing since then. At least she gets to find out how one of them is doing.ORI just really wanted Tulip to meet Lake and Jesse while throwing in a bunch of headcanons.
Relationships: Jesse Cosay & Mirror Tulip | Lake, Tulip Olsen & Jesse Cosay, Tulip Olsen & Mirror Tulip | Lake
Comments: 26
Kudos: 291





	Reminiscent

Thanksgiving break, which meant five days off of school. Not that Tulip minded, she enjoyed the IIT program she was in at her school, but the best part of the break meant going to game design camp for the second year in a row.

She was set into getting a job in coding, especially game design; she’d enjoyed video games her whole life, and wanted to be able to create something for people to enjoy. Ever since her first one, “Good Guys Popping Bad Guys,” she’d been having so many new ideas for games. One idea that always came popping back up was something based on her experiences on that infinite train.

Whenever it came to mind, she could never help but wonder how her friends were doing. Most spherical objects got her thinking about the strange, robotic conductor, One-One. A dog’s bark always got her wondering about Atticus and his kingdom. Her missing reflection, every time, always got her hoping that her mirror version was living her own life in peace.

It’d been about two years since she stepped onto that train, and she always found herself thinking back to it. If it weren’t for her missing reflection and the fact that she had been missing for about five months, she would’ve dismissed it as a dream. But it wasn’t. It was _real_.

Which meant that she hadn’t seen her friends in so long. Gosh, it would’ve been nice to know how they were doing, maybe a note or a sign or just something.

_I’m sure they’re okay_ , she told herself, walking down the sidewalk in her father’s neighborhood. Not that she’d ever know, but it was nice to believe that they were. She hoped they were, at least.

Her hands in her jacket pockets, she continued walking, lost in her thoughts. She wouldn’t be going to the game design camp until Friday, so she had a few days to spend with her father, plus Thanksgiving with her mother. Even if they were divorced, at least they were able to get along well enough for one night so that the three of them could celebrate Thanksgiving together.

_HONK!!!_

“Gah!!!” Tulip jumped back at the car horn that startled her from her thoughts, quickly jumping back out of the way. Still panting a bit, she watched the car pull into the driveway, blocking her path. Well, she could always walk around it, anyway.

Once the car came to a stop, a man and woman stepped out from the front seats, a young boy jumping out from the backseat from the door away from Tulip, running to the house with a wide grin on his face.

“Slow down, Nate!” the woman called out to the boy. Probably his mother.

The man gave Tulip a quick wave and smile, which she returned, before joining the woman and Nate to the front door, ringing the doorbell.

“Nate’s always excited to see our cousins, he’s like this every time we come visit.” An older boy stepped out from the backseat door closest to Tulip, looking almost like an exact replica of Nate, only bigger.

“And you’re sure they’ll be okay with me?” a familiar voice behind him asked. “Even though I’m… you know…”

Tulip felt her brows knit together; where had she heard that voice?

“Oh, they’ll love you! And I’m pretty sure with you, they’ll finally believe me about going on that weird train. When I called and told them about it, they didn’t believe me!”

“Well, who would believe some kid talking about a magic train with an all-powerful deer with godlike powers?” A very shiny person with a shaved head and a nicked eyebrow stepped out of the car, their skin reflecting everything around them.

Tulip squinted. Their face looked way too familiar. _Everything_ was too familiar about them.

“Or the fact that I spent the whole time hanging with a mirror criminal being chased by mirror police?”

Mirror criminal? Mirror police? Wait, it couldn’t be, they looked much different than when she last saw them. Was it really…

“Tulip?”

The redhead blinked at the sound of her name, the reflective person staring right at her.

It _was_ them.

It took a moment for her to gain her bearings, but once she did, she couldn’t stop grinning. “Oh my gosh!” she exclaimed, running up to hug her former reflection. “It’s been so long since I’ve seen you!” She pulled away, her smile still very wide. “How have you been, Mirror M— er, whoever you are now? Wait, how are you even here? Did you get off the train? And how about Atticus and One-One, are they okay? Is Amelia doing any better with her number?”

Tulip brought a hand to her forehead, her mind now flooding with thoughts. “Man, I just— I have so many questions!”

Her former reflection laughed, crossing their arms. “I’m sure you do, Tulip,” they told her with a smirk, before holding out a hand. “And I’m Lake now, by the way.”

Tulip’s brow raised as she shook her former reflection’s hand. “Lake?”

Lake shrugged. “Hey, better than _his_ suggestion.” They motioned to the boy next to them. “There’s no way I’m gonna call myself Dracula II.”

“Hey, it was a good name!” the boy retorted as Lake laughed, before he turned back to Tulip. “So you’re the Tulip that Lake told me about, huh?” He grinned, his smile friendly and lopsided. “Name’s Jesse.”

Tulip smiled back, shaking his hand as well. “Nice to meet you, Jesse.”

Jesse continued to smile, before his face quickly morphed into shock. “Whoa, so you really _don’t_ have a reflection!” he gasped, staring at Lake’s arms. “That is _so_ weird!”

Tulip took a look herself, already used to the sight. Jesse was reflecting off of Lake’s arms, while Tulip was nowhere in sight. Guess when you don’t have a reflection, you don’t even reflect off of your own reflection.

“Hey, don’t you know it’s rude to stare at your reflection inside of a reflection?” With a joking smile, Lake gently flicked the two humans on their foreheads, leading to them rubbing their heads from the pain. Tulip didn’t really mind it, though, as she laughed along with Lake, Jesse joining them as well.

“Man, we have a _lot_ to catch up on,” Lake said, placing a heavy hand on Tulip’s shoulder.

Tulip nodded, unable to stop smiling.

“Jesse? Lake? You two coming in?” the woman from earlier called out from the front door. “Everyone is waiting!”

“In a sec, Mom!” Jesse replied. “I wanna show Lake around the town real quick!”

“All right, but don’t be out too long!”

“Two hours tops!”

“I’m timing you!”

As she headed back inside, Jesse turned back to his friends, one old and one new. “Guess we better start heading into town now,” he told them. “There’s a really awesome froyo place I like to go to whenever my family visits here, we could hang out there!”

“Oh! I know what you’re talking about!” Tulip replied. “I love that place!” She turned to Lake. “You good with that?”

Lake shrugged. “I guess. It’ll be nice to eat actual froyo instead of mirror froyo, mirror food is pretty bland.”

Jesse gasped loudly, immediately gripping both of their shoulders, the most serious look on his face that Tulip had seen from him so far. “We _have_ to fix that,” he said, his tone matching his body language. “It’s absolutely _imperative_ that you try real froyo!”

For a moment, no one moved, before the three of them burst into laughter, Jesse letting Lake go.

“Okay, but seriously, if you’re cool with it, we can go to the froyo place.”

Lake shrugged again. “Eh. Why not?”

Tulip grinned. “Trust me, you’ll love it!” she told them as they began on their way to town. “Now, exactly what have you been doing since you left the Chrome Car?”

* * *

“Oh man, this stuff is so _good_!”

Tulip rolled her eyes with a smile. This was probably the fifth time Lake had said that ever since they took their first bite of real frozen yogurt. It was pretty great seeing them enjoying something, but it _was_ a little annoying when they were explaining the story of how they were able to escape after finding out that the people of the train couldn’t leave. She had to find out what happened next! They couldn’t just leave her hanging like that!

“I can continue for them,” Jesse said, Lake still enjoying their bite of the froyo. “So anyway, like Lake said, the number on my hand was going bonkers! Like, sometimes they weren’t even numbers! It was nuts!

“So the little ball robot—”

“One-One,” Tulip interrupted, taking a bite of her froyo.

“Right, that. Anyway, One-One was going insane because I didn’t have an actual number, and they didn’t know what to do because my problem wasn’t _my_ problem. And while that happens, the other mirror police guy just comes and tries to kill Lake again! Except he’s even angrier ‘cause like, Lake killed the other one, you know?”

Jesse had started waving his arms around as he continued, emphasizing some words as he dramatically told the story. “But then Lake gets this really awesome idea where they use their reflectiveness to give themself a number, like—”

He quickly grabbed Lake’s hand to give a demonstration. 

“Hey!” they exclaimed, clearly annoyed as their spoon almost fell to the floor.

Jesse held up his hand, showing how it reflected off of Lake’s palm. “It was like this, and when One-One saw that they had a number technically, they decided that Lake could go, but then Mirror Police Guy wouldn’t let her go, so Lake took some grass, and Alan Dracula just _BOOM_!” 

Jesse stood up as he shot his arms out, making an explosion noise with his mouth, a couple people around them looking at him. Tulip noticed Lake rolling their eyes as they took another bite of their froyo, but they were still smiling. Tulip couldn’t help but laugh at how dramatic Jesse was telling this story.

“He absolutely lasered the guy to death! Pretty gross, but Lake was able to get off, and now they’ve been living with me and my family for over a year or something.”

“Amazing reenactment, Jess,” Lake told him sarcastically.

Jesse just bowed with a wide grin on his face, before sitting back down. “So while they’re with us, my dad’s been homeschooling them since he works as a teacher for an online class thing, and my mom is a lawyer, so she’s been working on getting them legal stuff, like a social security number and all that.”

“Wait, do your parents know about Lake being… you know…” Tulip motioned to them, a couple people walking by with their eyes wide as they realized that they could see themselves in their skin.

Jesse nodded, pursing his lips. “Yeah. It’s hard to think of reasons to explain why someone is all… shiny and stuff. Plus my brother told my parents everything that I told him, anyway.”

“Not to mention that this guy can’t lie to save his life,” Lake added, motioning their spoon to him, some of their froyo flying onto his jacket. “He wanted to say that my parents spray painted me with metallic paint when I was born.”

“Hey, that was a good idea!”

“Nope, I agree with Lake,” Tulip told him. “That is a _horrible_ excuse.”

“Come on!”

Both Tulip and Lake laughed. As their laughter died down, Tulip noticed how different Lake’s laugh had become from hers. She couldn’t help but smile, proud of how Lake was really becoming their own person. It was pretty much impossible to tell that they had once been _her_ reflection, unless you looked at both of their faces closely, maybe.

“Anyway, how have you been, Tulip?” Lake asked her, now finished with their frozen yogurt. “It’s been almost two years since I’ve reflected you.”

“Oh, things have been a _lot_ better since I got off the train,” she replied. “After explaining to my parents what happened and why I went missing for five months, I decided I’d try to actually talk to about how I was feeling, and about how their divorce really hurt me, and—”

“Wait, _five months_ ?!” Jesse cried out in shock. “I was only in there for a few weeks or something!” His eyes were wide as he processed just how long Tulip was in the train. “ _Five months?!_ ”

Tulip laughed. “Yeah, it’s crazy, right? Anyway, my parents agreed that they’d try to understand, or at least listen. Of course, I wasn’t allowed to go anywhere for awhile without them, except for school, but once they trusted me again, they decided to let me go to the game design camp in Oshkosh, and it was _amazing_!”

Tulip brought out her cell phone, bringing up a website. “They showcase the games we make on their website, and this is the one I made. It’s based off of my first game, ‘Good Guys Popping Bad Guys,’ but with a lot of improvements. You guys can try it, it should be mobile friendly.”

Lake took the phone in their hands, playing the game for a few minutes with a smile on their face, before handing it to Jesse, who seemed more than excited as he played.

“That was awesome!” he exclaimed, returning the phone to Tulip. “You really made that entire thing yourself?!”

Tulip nodded.

“Definitely a lot better than the original ‘Good Guys Popping Bad Guys,’” Lake added. “It’s actually really fun!”

“Thanks, guys, really means a lot!”

Lake held up a hand, which Tulip high-fived, before pulling her hand away and shaking it in pain. Man, hitting your hand against metal was _painful_!

Jesse took a look at his own phone, his eyes widening a bit. “Shoot, two hours is almost up.” He stood up, grabbing his empty froyo cup, Lake and Tulip following in suit. “We better head back before my mom gets worried.”

They threw their cups away and headed out, walking back to the neighborhood.

“Hey, Lake?”

“Hm?” They looked up at her, tilting their head a bit.

Tulip smiled. “It was great catching up with you, and getting to know who you are now. It was cool. And you’re becoming a pretty cool person, too.”

Lake looked like they were trying to suppress their smile, their cheeks becoming darker, like some sort of blush. “Y-yeah, and it was nice seeing you again, too,” they responded.

“And it was nice meeting you, Jesse,” she said as he turned him.

He grinned wider. “Same to you, Tulip.”

He suddenly gasped, his eyes lighting up. “Hey, why don’t we exchange numbers?” he suggested. “That way we can stay in touch when we go back to Arizona, and you could text us about your time on the train! Or you can tell it to us while we’re still here. I still wanna know what you did for five months, like dang!”

Tulip laughed. “Sure! I might text you guys about it, since it’s really long, and I’m headed back to game design camp again this year on Friday.”

“Oh, nice! Hope you have fun there!”

“I definitely will!”

The other two quickly gave her their numbers, Tulip soon starting a group chat with them as they walked, the three of them now talking about whatever, their conversation all over the place. And it felt nice, as if she was catching up with old friends, and it was technically true with one of them.

When they arrived back at the house that Jesse and Lake were staying at, they quickly stopped, Tulip giving them both hugs as a goodbye. “Guess I’ll see you guys next time?”

Lake smiled. “Definitely. Catch you later!”

“See ya, Tulip!”

They walked up to the front door, waving at her as she went on her way back to her dad’s house. She quickened her pace as it began to snow, still smiling from being able to meet one of her friends from the train again, and being able to meet a new one who could relate to what she had been through with the train.

It was good to know that Lake was okay; they seemed much happier and more comfortable with themself since she last saw them. So maybe she could trust that Atticus and One-One were doing just as fine, or maybe even better. At least she could say that with confidence.

**Author's Note:**

> Like I said in the tags, I made this on the fly and it's probably not good. Actually, it's probably a little boring because I didn't really know where I was going with this lol, but I hope you still liked it!
> 
> Also it's Thanksgiving break because I don't know when Tulip was supposed to go to game design camp/got on the train, but I'm sure it's not summer since it was snowing, and from searching the internet, I found that the pilot took place in November, so I figured it was a good shot to say game design camp was during Thanksgiving break.


End file.
